Shapes moved around him; indistinguishable, unseeable, but horribly real. They moved with him, dancing and hunting.
Jonathan raced forward in the darkness, blindly groping ahead of him with outstretched hands.
“Merrily!” he cried out in the black. It was an alien, unnatural act, within a forest like this. The sound of his cry stopped harshly after it left his lips, absorbed by the darkness. He dashed forward again, and the shapes drew closer.
In his haste, he tripped on a root, and plunged headlong into a tree. Lights danced in his vision.
The shapes drew around him, and he saw bulging eyes set over wide mouths filled with too many teeth. There was a soft, hissing purr, as a squat humanoid form emerged from the primordial blobs of the shapes.
“Dead end, Jonathan Miller,” it said, in its low strangely-accented purr. And it opened its mouth wide above him.
???
Jonathan’s eyes fluttered and opened, just in time for a particularly vicious bump in the road to fling his body upward in the small coach. His head slammed against the ceiling, and lights danced in his vision. He reversed this lofty ascent, landing with a bone-jarring thud on the thin, rather pitiful seat cushion. Slightly scrambled from this sudden altitudinal oscillation, Jonathan peered blearily out the window to reorient himself. What had he been dreaming about? There were teeth. He could remember little more than teeth, and shuddered.
The wan light of a rainy, early-October afternoon filtered through the dusty slats of the little coach as it rattled along the Hog Hurst road. The rain was heavy, and the staccato beat of the drops on the roof of the coach made his brain itch. They had not yet cleared Far Gourd by the look of it. Some miles beyond that last pillar of civilization, the tidy farmsteads on either side of the road would turn to wilderness and then to massive trees. Jonathan rubbed the top of his head gingerly and thought back to another journey he’d made through Far Gourd two years ago—not in even a shabby coach, but on skis, hoping to slip into his home to find out what had gone wrong there.
That journey had ended in blood, and also in glory of a sort. This one, by contrast, was likely to end in paperwork.
He rested his elbow on the windowsill and stared out at the passing miles of his life as they drifted by.
Jonathan’s reverie was broken by a sudden deceleration of the coach and whinnying of the horses. He could hear voices from ahead, and a low, rumbling sound. Irritated at the delay, he opened the slats and stuck his head out. He immediately wished he hadn’t, as the downpour drenched him as surely as if he’d jumped head-first into the Green River.
The prospect of immersion in the Green was surprisingly near at hand. The heavy rains had raised the water level, and a low stretch of the trade road had transformed into an impromptu pond. A line of coaches and trade wagons, headed north, had queued up at the south bank of the obstruction, with no evidence of forward progress to be seen. A similar line waited in patient misery on the north side of the water. The drivers on both sides slouched in the rain beside their vehicles, oil-soaked coats wrapped tightly around hunched bodies and wide-brimmed hats pulled low over heads. They looked like ghosts; indeed, the whole scene resembled nothing so much as a traffic jam on the highway to Hell.
Jonathan awkwardly shrugged on his own oil slicker and pulled on a wide hat, stepping out gingerly from the coach to walk forward. His driver was already slithering off his perch, looking glumly at the line ahead.
“Nothing for’t, master,” the man announced, “but to sleep under the coach. That water ain’t goin’ anywhere soon. Maybe one of them wagons can sell us a blanket or two,” he added hopefully.
Jonathan paused for a moment, staring hard at the obstructed road.
“One little flood,” he declared, “is not going to stop Jonathan Miller.”
“Dangerous business, crossin’ water like that,” cautioned the driver. “Ya can’t know how deep it goes. I ain’t riskin’ my team on’t.”
Jonathan handed him a few triangular copper coins, and clapped him on the arm. “Make your way back to Green Bridge,” he said, pulling his satchel out of the coach’s boot. “I’m sure Veridia has another job for a prudent coachman. I’m going on to Hog Hurst, and I’m going to do my job. This… is my adventure.”
He stumped forward gamely in the rain, trying to imagine he was on a pair of skis, gliding toward destiny.
By the time he reached the edge of the water, Jonathan felt as if he’d already swum across it. The rain flooded his boots, ran down his back, and crept under his shirt around the collar of the slicker. But he cheerfully waded into the dark, swirling pond, ignoring the tugging of the current around his legs. The far bank was perhaps fifty feet away, and as he strode toward it the frigid water rose to his shins, then his thighs, then (with a certain amount of cringing and shifting on Jonathan’s part) over his hips, and then up to his chest. The current grew stronger as he went deeper, tugging insistently toward the main channel to the west.
When it was up to his neck, Jonathan slipped.
His head went under, and his world collapsed into darkness. Jonathan’s feet scrambled for purchase on the slick, submerged grass, and found none. He was dragged, implacably, to one side, out toward the deep, long, dark of the Green. He tried to swim, but his heavy, sodden clothing held him down even as the current swept his feet up and away from the ground. His lungs began to burn, and his rational thought dissolved into panic. He waved his hands helplessly, in the direction he thought might be up.
It’s at times like this, he said to himself, that I wish I believed in God.
His fingers touched something solid, and the solid thing gripped itself around his hand and pulled. He was drawn forcibly forward and up until his head breached the surface. Gasping hoarsely and spitting water, he flapped his arms uselessly and otherwise allowed himself to be propelled in whatever direction the hand wanted him to go. Soon his feet touched ground again, and then his knees. He was drawn up onto the north bank of the pond.
There was a man there. He was sopping wet, just as Jonathan was. His face was clean-shaven, and his hair cut short; his age was difficult to place. The face was stern, lined with care, but also gentle and subtle. There was something familiar about the face, though in his disturbed state Jonathan could not place it. A power and authority lurked around him. Just now, though, the gravitas of his rescuer was rather ruined by the inundated state of his clothing.
“Who… are you?” gasped Jonathan. “And what happened?”
The man gave a slight, wry smile. “You tried to walk across a wet patch in the road, and I’m afraid the wet patch had other ideas. I happened to be here on the other side, and saw you were in trouble. My name, just now, in this place, is Basil.”
Jonathan stared at the grass for a few minutes, as the rain pelted his skull. He’d lost his hat in the river.
“Thank you,” he said finally. “I’m lucky you were here.”
“You are lucky today,” confirmed Basil, “and we shall see how many more days your luck extends.” He spoke Uellish with an accent that Jonathan couldn’t quite place. It tickled the sense of familiarity that gnawed at the back of his mind.
“Were you stopped by the flood too?” asked Jonathan, staggering to his feet. “I’d better see about hiring one of the wagons on this side. If you’re going to turn around and go back, please travel with me. I’ll reward you properly when we reach Far Gourd, or you can come on with me to Hog Hurst if you care to.”
Basil rose to his feet as well.
“As it happens,” he said, “I am headed that way as well. I escort a lady of high birth and refinement on a trip to conduct certain transactions in Hog Hurst.”
Jonathan looked around. He didn’t see anyone else nearby.
“Is she back with the coaches?” he asked curiously, turning his eyes to the line of southbound teams lined up at the edge of the pond.
“Down ‘ere, ye git,” came a high-pitched voice. Jonathan felt a sharp pain in his left foot. He looked down, and saw that a six-inch-tall woman had stabbed him with what looked like a knitting needle.
Then he narrowed his eyes and looked more closely at the snarf.
“Devi?”
???
Jonathan stared suspiciously over the lip of his mug at Devi Dingeholt. Her features and proportions were similar to that of a female human, though rendered at one-tenth scale. She had shoulder-length black hair, which she wore loose. That, at least, was different than Jonathan remembered her. Her complexion was still pale, and her features fair; a little narrower in the face than most Uellish, with a slight smirk perpetually dancing about her lips.
She sat comfortably on an upturned beer mug. Next to it, right side up, was a second, slightly taller mug, imbued with a generous pint of the local Far Gourd nutbrown ale. From time to time, she dipped her head over the lip of the mug, slurping noisily at the amber liquid within.
“Carry me outside, Jonathan Miller,” Devi commanded unsteadily. “I gotta piss.”
Jonathan raised his eyes to the man Basil, casually slouched nearby over a bowl of soup. Basil saw his question, smiled slightly, and shrugged.
“Devi can go wherever she likes,” he answered softly in his roly-poly accent, “and with whomever she likes. If she doesn’t care for how you’re holding her, you’ll end the day with one more hole in you than when it began.”
The tiny woman waved insistently at him, and Jonathan placed his hands in front of her, cupped slightly.
“Nah like that, ye twit,” she said, giving his thumb a hard kick. “I’ll fall ou’ as soon as ye star’ walkin’. Jes’ put yer hand aroun’ me middle bit an’ lift up. Don’t squeeze ‘ard like, or I’ll ‘url me ale on ye.”
Jonathan carefully placed his right hand around Devi’s torso. She felt surprisingly dense.
“Don’ git any ideas, ye great clumsy oaf. Now put me on yer shoulder. I kin’ hang on thar.”
He deposited Devi onto his left shoulder, and found that she did indeed cling on tenaciously.
“Now keep the shruggin’ to a minimum, Jonathan Miller, an’ go find a bush, er somethin’.”
Jonathan located a potted geranium on the rail in front of the inn that did adequate service as a privy, and politely turned his back on the flowers while Devi rustled around among them. After a minute or two, at her command, he retrieved the tiny woman and brought her back inside the inn, replacing her gently on the upturned beer mug.
“Aaaaaah,” she exhaled, relaxing against the pewter. “Volume. Ye big-folk ain’t much fer quality, but I’ll allow as ye’ve got
licked pretty good. I ain’t seen this much strong ale in one place since I accidentally went swimmin’ in Dyunald Dog-brew’s vats two winters back.”
Jonathan shook his head in wonder.
“You’re dead,” he remarked.
“I’m thirsty, is wha’ I am,” she retorted.
“No, I mean, you’re deceased. You were drowned. Your brother is positive he saw your body at the bottom of a rain barrel during the break-out from the White Knights, and no one’s seen or heard from you since then.”
“Ye’d know a thing ‘er two about bein’ drown’d, wouldn’t ye, Jonathan Miller,” she scoffed. “I reckon ye could tell if someone was drown’d ‘r not, jes’ from ‘earin’ a second-‘and rumor, spok’t by a’ idjit.”
“Alright,” he apologized. “Daven must have been mistaken. But you know they named the whole valley after you in memorial, right?” Devi gave a slow nod, eyes narrowed in smug satisfaction. “And have you been back to see him?” Jonathan continued. “He thinks you died that day. He might appreciate being proven wrong, just this once.”
Devi’s manner changed suddenly, and she looked down at the top of the upturned mug silently for a time.
“‘E don’t know,” she said, her small voice barely audible against the background chatter of the inn’s common room. Jonathan leaned his head closer to catch her words. “‘E don’t know, an’ ‘e cain’t know. Ye mustn’t tell ‘im, Jonathan. Promise me that, or I’ll put yer eyes out in yer sleep er somethin’.”
Jonathan blinked in surprise, and cocked his head to the side.
“Why can’t he know? Why would you keep something like that a secret?”
“‘Cause if ‘e knows, then ‘t all comes out mouse-shaped.”
“I guess… mouse-shaped isn’t good. But then why are you here, talking with me? Aren’t you afraid I might tell him anyway, once you’re far enough away from me that you can’t stab my eyes out or poison me or something?”
She looked up at him, tiny eyes unreadable in the dim light of the common room.
“Oh, ye ain’t gittin’ away from me that easy, Jonathan. I’m comin’ with ye—ta the Gray Kingdom at least, maybe beyond. And I’m comin’ with ye because if I don’t, it’s gonna blow past mouse-shaped and into flamin’ dragon-shaped.”
???
They set out early the following morning, sharing a carriage that Jonathan hired in Far Gourd to convey them north on the trade road, through the Green Wood to Hog Hurst. Basil rode quietly on the bench opposite Jonathan, staring out the window and breathing deeply. Devi, who was liable to be jostled by the considerable shocks occasioned by their rapid pace, rode in a padded pouch, sewn into a strap that Basil wore across his chest. A tiny snore emerged from inside the pouch.
Jonathan knew Basil now. He recalled him as one of the three odd, out-of-place strangers he’d met on the road two years ago when he first set out with Cyrus and Merrily. Basil had then, like his two erstwhile companions, worn tattered, filthy rags. Now, he was dressed in a simple shirt and brown hose, tied at the waist with a brass-buckled belt. He wore an overcoat of coarse wool on top of these to keep out the increasing chill of the autumn air.
“What happened to your two friends?” asked Jonathan.
“We went our separate ways,” he said softly. “Each of us has many tasks for many masters. It is not yet time for our branches to come together again.”
Jonathan snorted. “Your Uellish has improved since we first met, but you’re no easier to understand.”
Basil smiled. It was not an unfriendly smile, but nor was it friendly; it was more clinical than anything else.
“Every word we speak, Jonathan, is a shot fired forward into time. Its consequences are difficult to see, but must never be discounted. I am cautious with the discharge of such potent weapons.”
“Just who are you shooting at?” Jonathan pressed.
Basil’s smile broadened. “At the enemy, of course,” he answered.
Devi, waking briefly from her nap, interjected in her small, piercing voice. “Dinnae bandy words wi’ this one. You’ll never beat ‘im at triple-half-meanin’ an’ evasion. ‘E loves nothin’ more than actin’ smug an’ all-knowin’. I’s jes an act. He lays down a foul shite in the woods, jes like the rest o’ us.”
“Right on all counts but one, my friend,” answered Basil, his face growing serious. “The things that I love are far beyond myself.”
The carriage passed under the eaves of the Green Wood in the mid-morning, and they rode in silence for most of the long, dark traverse of the ancient forest. Jonathan, staring moodily at the great boles of the trees on either side, tried to remember the spot where, two years ago, they had left the path, groping in the dark for signs of Cyrus Stoat’s missing postman, Michael Rider.
His thoughts drifted to Merrily, as they always did if left untended. He returned in his mind to those glorious early days of their love, and his own near-disbelief at the astounding fact that she could love him as much as he loved her. But that road led where it always led—to Merrily today, to her increasing cold and distance, to the creeping but inevitable conclusion that he was losing her. He longed for a distraction, but between the somnolent Devi and her obscure companion, none was on offer.
Late that afternoon they emerged into the cleared land around Hog Hurst, to its tidy farms and cozy fields of wheat and barley, and to a rich harvest of bittersweet memories.
???
Jonathan dropped Devi and Basil at Hog Hurst’s old inn an hour after sundown, but he himself went on to the factor house to check in on the Snugg dispatches. The darkened streets of the little village were paved with new cobblestones, and three-story buildings of recent construction ringed the broad trading square. The square itself was well lit with oil lamps, which extended out into the smaller roads farther from the village center. The roads had been revised and straightened considerably; Veridia had very definite ideas about how a Snugg trading center should be laid out, and the old, narrow, winding alleys of the village did not conform to them. The transformation had involved a great deal of cash outlay to buy up old homes along the village streets, tear them down, and then re-build them to be sold back to their previous owners at a discount, leaving room for broad avenues and tidy right angles.
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Hog Hurst was, in fact, nearly unrecognizable from the sleepy village of Jonathan’s childhood. But he had to concede that its present form was far more organized and navigable, both for the Snugg caravanners that came and went with more frequency, and also for the residents themselves, whose numbers had been swollen with new arrivals. He wondered, as he often did, if the gains outweighed what had been lost. Judging by the very few complaints that reached his desk, the consensus among his neighbors was in favor. But Jonathan pondered whether that was, in fact, the right metric.
The Snugg factor house stood just off the main square, at the front of a cavernous warehouse that was accessible both from the square and from a broad, open track behind that led out of town, as straight as an arrow, to the east. A guard in a dark uniform with the Snugg “S” patch on his shoulder nodded politely to Jonathan and opened the door. He ascended to his office on the third floor, where he was surprised to see a light emanating from beneath the door.
Jonathan stopped and listened carefully. There was a faint shuffling from within. Someone was inside.
He opened the door swiftly, without knocking. It was, after all, his own office. Inside, a small man in a rumpled shirt sat with his feet up on the oak desk, his face obscured by a large sheet of paper from which he appeared to be reading silently. A shock of red hair was visible over the top of paper, and a narrow-brimmed felt hat that was not Jonathan’s sat on the table by the feet. At Jonathan’s entrance, the paper was lowered, and the small man’s clean-shaved face appeared above it.
Jonathan stood up a little straighter upon seeing his guest.
“Good evening, Mr. Snugg,” he said, trying to mask his surprise.
Rufus Snugg crinkled his face into a mock-scowl, and he waved the paper irritably at Jonathan.
“Just ‘Rufus,’ Jonathan. I insist on familiarity with my people. We are a family, we merchant adventurers; we must not turn into another Ecclesia. And also, it’s much harder to hide incompetence and disloyalty once you strip away all the mindless formalism and fake deference.”
Jonathan shrugged. “As you wish, Rufus. Kindly get your feet off my desk.”
Rufus Snugg gave a barking laugh. “Ha! Well done. We’ll make a robber baron of you yet.” He took his feet off the table and stood up, shaking Jonathan’s hand warmly and relocating to one of the padded guest chairs on the other side. Jonathan seated himself in the chair recently occupied by the young merchant scion.
“What brings you to Hog Hurst?” he inquired politely. “I thought you were overseeing the project at Devi Valley.” Saying the name aloud gave him pause for a moment, but he concluded that there was no need, for now, to break her confidence.
“Coal,” Rufus answered abruptly. “We are doing great things out there, my friend. Great things there, and here as well. I trust you’re aware of what’s going on in the warehouse behind us.” He nodded at an open window along one wall of the office, looking down into the vast open space of the warehouse below, out of direct sight from where the two of them sat in the center of the room. “It will change the world, and make us all colossally rich along the way. And even that may not be the greatest progress we can achieve in our lifetimes. There are ideas, designs, discoveries, all waiting to burst out from the halls you found at Devi Valley. It’s a treasure hoard like none ever found before. But all of those great things need Jonathan, and ; progress has a great appetite for both. Right now, that means coal. The coal is here, and we need it to be there.”
Jonathan sighed, looking down at the polished, stained oak tabletop under his hands.
“You’re here about that, then,” he said, slightly miserably. “Miss Snipe has been on me about the coal shipments for the last month. Something’s gone mouse-shaped in the Gray Kingdom.”
Rufus raised one red eyebrow.
“Have you been keeping company with snarfs, Jonathan?” he asked in amusement. “You sound like Daven Dingeholt. Who, by the way, is one of the most irritating landlords I’ve ever met. I knew it was a mistake to hire a lawyer for him. I never should have let Miss Snipe talk me into it.”
Now it was Jonathan’s turn to smile, relieved to change the subject.
“I see your taste for informality doesn’t extend to our operations chief,” he remarked slyly.
Rufus looked around with sudden caution. “Is she here?” he asked. Satisfied that she was not, he went on. “Since I have no concerns about either Miss Snipe’s competence or loyalty, I’m prepared to indulge a few personal quirks. Now look, Jonathan,” he said, waving the paper at him. Jonathan saw that it was this week’s ciphered inventory report. “Look. I’m prepared to accept a certain amount of inconsistency from our friends in the Gray Kingdom. One doesn’t transform an entire culture in a single year. King Simon has done remarkable work. But coal output has plummeted! Something must be done, Jonathan. Do they need more labor? Perhaps expert assistance from our people? It can all be provided.”
He laid the paper down and leaned forward toward Jonathan, resting his elbows on the table.
“It may be,” he added, his voice lowered, “that our neighbors aren’t yet ready for the challenges of large-scale industry. Perhaps it would be better for them if they were given more time to grow and develop; to raise the literacy rate, for instance, and to have more of their people educated in Green Bridge. We could take over operation of the coal mines temporarily with our own staff, and relocate the goblins to someplace safer, out of the way. Give them time and space to work things out for themselves.”
Jonathan swallowed. The words sounded pleasant enough, but something inside him screamed in protest.
“I think,” he said cautiously, “we’d better find out from King Simon just what the trouble is, before anyone starts making plans for mass relocation.”
Rufus rose to his feet.
“Just so,” he agreed, and Jonathan felt a wash of relief.
Rufus walked over to the long window that looked down over the warehouse interior. Jonathan stood up and joined him. The huge floor below was lit with regular oil lamps. A bank of fining eggs stood along the north wall, and workshops dotted the floor. At this hour, most of the workers had gone home, though a few guards still patrolled the floor. In the center of the warehouse, a large scaffolding obscured a long, hulking shape set on a pair of tracks. The tracks led to two broad doors on rollers at the far end of the space. Heat, and the acrid smell of coal smoke, wafted up to bathe Jonathan’s face. The forges were banked for the night, but they were still hot.
Jonathan had seen models and prototypes, but what was coming together now, beneath the scaffolding, was the real thing. It was a closely guarded secret; the workers, brought in from Green Bridge, were subject to the most fearsome contracts of non-disclosure and were housed in a private barracks next door to the warehouse. Jonathan himself hadn’t even discussed the project with Merrily—though in fairness, her rapidly cooling attitude hadn’t left him many opportunities to do so.
There was a gleam of steel beneath the scaffolding, caught by the light of the oil lamps. The twin rails, too, gleamed in the dim light.
“It will change the world, my friend,” said Rufus, his voice soft with awe at the steel monster below them.
???
In the faint gray light before dawn on the tenth of October, Jonathan made his way to the lonely cemetery north of Hog Hurst. He wore a broad hat and oil slicker against the rain, and carried a small lantern to light his way.
More than half the grave markers were freshly hewn and un-weathered. These recent placements were monuments, not only to the individual dead, but also to the village’s struggle against its occupiers two winters prior. Jonathan walked along the dim rows until he came to one stone in particular. Its form, like those of its neighbors, was rather irregular, salvaged as they were from the ancient ruins that dotted the forests around the village. Faint, flowing etchings could still be seen in the stone from some long-dead hand, but a more recent carving stood out prominently on top of them. The new carving consisted of merely a name and a date. It read:
George Miller
Jonathan squatted down on his heels and brushed away fallen orange leaves from a nearby maple tree. He stayed that way for many minutes, saying nothing, lost in a damp reverie.
“What was the point?” he asked at last, in a soft, conversational tone. “Why did you live? You never told me.” He shifted his legs, sitting down with his face still to the grave. “Was it to run a mill? Make money? Get married? Raise a family?”
George made no response.
“What did all that mean,” he went on, “in the end, when some maniac crusader crushed your chest in with a mace?”
“Perhaps,” said a voice nearby, “it was all a poorly conceived joke.”
Jonathan started to his feet at the interruption, and saw a figure sitting on a nearby gravestone, wearing a cloak and hat like his own. The figure slid to its feet and walked close by. Jonathan raised the lantern to see its face, and then opened his eyes wider in recognition.
“Victor Hogman,” he greeted the man. “What are you doing here?”
“Would you believe I was visiting my own father’s grave?”
“I wouldn’t, actually,” answered Jonathan. “It’s five o’clock in the morning on a rainy day in October. The chances we’d both coincidentally pick this time to pay our respects to the dead are about as good as those of Cyrus Stoat showing up with both legs.”
A faint smile lit up Victor’s plain face, obscured slightly through a short beard. Beneath the heavy cloak, Jonathan that saw a small, silver pendant hung from his neck. It was of two lines crossed at right angles, with a small circle set at their center.
“There are no coincidences, Jonathan,” he said, still smiling.
“Fine,” replied Jonathan. “You could have just made an appointment at the Snugg office, but instead you followed me here to perch on a gravestone when I wasn’t looking and make a dramatic appearance. I hope whatever you have to say to me is worth the discomfort. But if it’s not, I won’t be terribly disappointed.”
Victor turned and looked down the row of graves.
“My father’s grave is, actually, nearby. Come take a look with me?”
Jonathan shrugged and followed along after him. They stopped, after perhaps a half-dozen sites, before a similarly plain marker. This one bore the inscription:
Albert Hogman
Victor gazed down at the marker. “Father dropped dead that June, after the White Knights,” he remarked. “I’m told Mother found him face down outside the hog pen. Fortunate he wasn’t inside, or there’d have been nothing left to bury.” He looked up at Jonathan. “I wasn’t invited to the funeral,” he added.
“I think,” said Jonathan carefully, “that if you’d been at the funeral, they’d have had an extra body to put in the ground. People were angry with you, Victor, for working with the White Knights.”
He expected some gesture of shame from Victor, but none was forthcoming. Instead, the other man held his gaze levelly.
“I’m not proud of what I did,” he said. “I was wrong. I had reasons, but the reasons were wrong too. And I’ve paid, Jonathan. I haven’t seen my wife or daughters since that night in the barn, when you let me go. I pay every day.”
“Is that why you joined the Advocates?” asked Jonathan. “To do penance?”
Victor’s hand crept up to finger the small silver pendant.
“I follow Ash,” he answered, “because She is right, in every way that the White Knights were wrong.”
“Why is Ash right?” asked Jonathan. “You people love to creep around making dramatic appearances and telling anyone who’ll listen that Ash loves them. But as far as I can tell, no one’s ever said anything about who Ash is or what she wants from anybody.”
“Why do you suppose,” responded Victor, “that She wants anything at all us?”
Jonathan snorted. “Gods always want something, Victor. At least, the people who speak for them do. They want sacrifices, or obedience, or money, or for everyone to follow these ten rules, or to kill the infidels, or whatever else.”
“I think Cyrus Stoat has made a surprise appearance after all,” said Victor with a broader smile. “With two legs, no less.” Then he turned back to his father’s grave, and the smile faded. “Albert Hogman lived a long life, and he kept pigs well. He led people, in a small way, in a small village. He loved his family. And he died feeding the pigs. Why does there have to be anything more to it?”
“Did you come all the way out here in the rain just to tell me that?” asked Jonathan. “There’s a certain poetry to your pointlessness. Next time you want to give a sermon, save yourself the trouble and come by the office. I promise we won’t hand you over to the authorities, just for showing up.”
“I appreciate the invitation,” replied his companion, “but I’m needed elsewhere. I know you’re not well disposed to me, Jonathan, and I regret that. But actually, the reason I walked out here in the rain was to thank you for saving my life that night. Had you not drawn the men away and freed me, I’d have been killed by my own father. I came to repay the debt.”
“And how are you going to do that?” asked Jonathan.
Victor turned and began to walk away; but as he did, he looked back at Jonathan.
“I already have,” he replied, as the faint smile returned to his bearded lips. And with that he left Jonathan alone in the cemetery.
???
Just half an hour later—with scant more light, but no less rain—Jonathan crossed the Green River in a canoe rented from Jeremiah Fisher. The garrulous fish-monger, at least, had not yet changed with the times. He could be heard snoring in a small, cozy hut next to his even smaller dock, letting the rack of canoes rent themselves. Jonathan, smiling to himself, dropped a square, silver bottom in the clay jar by the door and hefted a canoe off the rack.
Little else about the waterfront was left unchanged by the march of progress. Three newer, larger docks jutted out into the Green River just downstream. Two of these were presently occupied by enormous Snugg river barges. A broad log ramp had been constructed further upstream, allowing the trunks harvested on the far side to be floated across and then drawn up to be processed at the mill that gave Jonathan’s family their name.
On the far side of the river, too, a series of wharfs had sprung up, and river traffic between the two banks was brisk—even with reduced coal output. A strip of the land on the east bank had been cleared of most trees, though at the strenuous urging of Alice Miller a smattering of the tallest and broadest had been left in place. (Mrs. Miller, who was well-read, seemed to feel that it was morally abhorrent to cut down the trees on a piece of land. As she had taken her late husband’s place on the Board of Selectmen, no one saw much profit in arguing with her.)
On the eastern bank, Jonathan spoke with the Snugg dock attendant, only to discover that all the wagons that normally plied the new road out to the Gray Kingdom had already departed for the day. So instead of hitching a ride, as he’d planned, he set off along the road on foot, trudging stolidly through the rain. Soon enough the cleared strip came to an end. Here, the new road wound into and around the deep, endless, vaulted dungeon that was the forest beyond the frontier. So far as anyone in Hog Hurst knew, the trees went on to the end of the world, and then kept going.
Fortunately, the Gray Kingdom was considerably closer than the end of the world. Jonathan and his mother had first discovered the tribes by accident, pursuing Merrily and Cyrus as they chased after the Witherfork Surveys. The road that Jonathan followed now—where once there hadn’t been so much as a rabbit run—was a testament to the transformation of the forest goblins, no less than of their neighbors to the east. They were miners now, and builders, and traders. There were those among them, the quiet ones, who were perhaps more.
There were also those among them who were considerably less.
All this rattled through Jonathan’s head as he squelched alone through the damp understory of the forest. When he judged it to be mid-morning, he paused, sat down heavily under one tastelessly enormous trunk, and fished about in his sack for a bit of bread that he’d stolen from the mill kitchen that morning.
Something in the bag bit his hand.
He withdrew the hand hastily and peered inside, fearful of seeing some dreadful spider or rat, or perhaps a miniature snorl. What he saw, instead, was Devi Dingeholt, brandishing her pin-like lance and fixing him with a fearsome glare.
“Watch where yer gropin’, ye pervert,” she pronounced.
Jonathan glared back. “If you’d not stowed away in my sack,” he retorted, “there’d have been no groping. What possessed you to sleep in there? Now I’m going to have to go all the way back and send you across the river—”
“Ye’ll do no such thing, Jonathan Miller,” the six-inch tall woman interrupted sternly. “Ye’ll put on th’ saddle I brought along fer ya an’ keep on yer way.”
“I’ll do no such no such thing,” he retorted. “I’m going to the Gray Kingdom, and some of the citizens there haven’t quite got the message that it’s bad form to eat food that talks. You’ll make a quick morning snack for any goblin the catches you alone and thinks no one’s looking.”
“Ye do such no such no such thing,” she replied furiously, “or else I’ll insert this ‘ere lance in the last place ye want it, at the last time ye expect it.”
Jonathan, who had by now quite lost track of the lengthening parade of negatives, but in whose mind the prospect of being molested by an undead snarf now loomed like some deranged allegory for the futility of reason, blinked. Rain dripped down the back of his neck, and he shivered.
“Fine,” he said. “But quit stabbing me.”
“No promises,” she smirked. “Sometimes a new mount needs ta’ feel th’ spur. Now put on yer saddle an’ giddyup.”
Jonathan lifted her gently out of the satchel, set her on the ground, and fished about until he located the sash and pouch that Basil had worn on the carriage ride.
“Where’s your last mount?” he inquired.
Devi, who until now had been irritatingly jocular, looked suddenly askance.
“‘E ‘ad business,” was all she would say.
Jonathan abandoned both resistance and reason as manifestly futile. He shrugged on the sash, placed Devi inside the pouch, and walked on deeper into the endless forest.
???
In the vast, deep hall beneath ancient trees, Jonathan crept like an ant among gods.
The dusk, earlier now in October, had come on before he reached the ill-defined borders of the Gray Kingdom, and he had brought no lantern with him. As Devi snored softly in her pouch, Jonathan fumbled along the road, navigating slowly by the fading light. The rain continued. No moon or stars, even filtered through gaps in the high canopy, would help him. He considered bedding down under one of the trees, but the prospect of sleeping unsheltered in the near-freezing night temperatures, in dripping rain, seemed likely to prove fatal.
Only lesser and greater darkness served to mark the massive arboreal pillars; towering kings in the underworld.
Shapes moved around him. They were indistinguishable, unseeable, but horribly real. They moved with him, dancing and hunting. An insistent memory tugged at his mind, but he set it aside.
He gave the pouch a gentle shake. Devi’s snoring continued, interrupted only briefly by a muttered curse.
The shapes drew closer around him, and panic with them. He raced forward in the darkness, blindly groping ahead of him with outstretched hands.
“Merrily!” he cried out in the black. Why he did this, he could not say later. It was an alien, unnatural act, within a forest like this. The sound of his cry stopped harshly after it left his lips, absorbed by the darkness. He dashed forward again, and the shapes drew still closer.
In his haste, he tripped on a root, and plunged headlong into a tree. Lights danced in his vision.
The shapes drew around him, and he saw bulging eyes set over wide mouths filled with too many teeth. There was a soft, hissing purr, as a squat humanoid form emerged from the primordial blobs of the shapes.
It spoke words he could not understand, in a low, strangely-accented purr. And it opened its mouth wide above him.
Then a faint shadow stole over the top of its head, and there was the tiniest glint of metal. The eyes became distant, and the wide mouth closed. The body dropped onto Jonathan’s chest.
The other shapes around him began to rustle and shiver with activity, and he saw the tiny shadow dart among them, leaping from head to head, body to body. The tiny metal glint darted in and out, plunging into their forms as they fell to the ground, quivering. A tumult of angry, fearful voices arose from them, and suddenly the dark shapes were gone. Jonathan lay beneath the one that had fallen on him, panic denying him even enough will to struggle out from beneath it.
“Git yerself together, Jonathan Miller,” came a high-pitched voice, apparently quite near to his head.
These words restored a modicum of rational thought to his mind, and he pushed the limp body off himself. It was a goblin. Other, faintly-seen gray humps on the ground around him were also goblins. Their peculiar hats, each filled with oddities and small treasures, were scattered about on the ground. The voices of the survivors could be heard, shrieking and cackling, as they retreated off into the distance.
“Devi?” he inquired.
“Nay,” said the voice, “I’s th’ queen o’ Big Folks, come ta’ make sweet love ta’ ye. Now bend over.”
Jonathan declined this invitation, but instead struggled to his feet. Seeing little in the dim light, he put his hands on the ground and felt Devi climb into them. He lifted her up gently to bring her near his face.
“What happened?” he asked.
“This is why yer girl got bored wi’ ye,” remarked Devi sarcastically. “Ye’re the ’sort o’ git who asks ‘What happened’ when th’ answer’s obvious as a turd in th’ street. Bunch o’ grayskins jumped ye. Ye’d ‘ave been et up by now, too, ‘ad that not ‘ave caused a damned inconvenience ta’ me.”
Jonathan snorted and tucked Devi back into the pouch.
“You’ve been spending too much time with Basil,” he remarked. “Do you know where the road is? I seem to have run off it.”
“Not a clue,” replied his diminutive savior. “I only woke up when ye fell o’er an’ nearly squashed me.”
Jonathan cast about in futile desperation. All around him was blackness. The rain was increasing, and an uncontrollable shiver had set in. He knew well that if he did not find shelter soon, he would likely die in the night from exposure.
“This is impossible,” he muttered. “Goblins don’t run around in gangs and try to kill people anymore. King Simon’s taught them not to.”
“I’ll call that lot back, if ye’d like ta’ explain’ it to ’em,” offered Devi. Jonathan, who had nothing to say to this, sat down on the ground miserably beneath a tree.
A faint sound in the vast silence of the forest caught his attention, and his eyes darted in its direction. Far off, through the enormous trunks that surrounded him, there was a flicker of light.
“There’s a light,” he said softly to Devi.
“Wha’ ‘ave I told ye about recitin’ th’ bleedin’ obvious?” she criticized. “Go toward th’ light, Jonathan Miller. It’s what ‘eros always do in yer stories, ain’t it?”
He began to follow this advice, staggering blindly through the understory in the direction from which he thought he’d caught the glimpse of light.
“Am I a hero?” he asked Devi.
“Ah very much doubt it,” she opined.
“I don’t feel like a hero,” he agreed, stumbling over another tree root in the rain. “I haven’t done anything heroic in ages. I think I’m a minor side character, lost alone in the woods and about to die horribly to give some emotional heft to the main plot. People only pay attention to the main characters if they think there’s some chance they’ll die off. So your cheap, lazy storytellers always kill off a character or two early on, just so the audience pays attention to all the rest of them.”
“All fair points,” she agreed. “If this were a story, ye’d be a waste o’ good words. I, on th’ other hand, would be an epic ‘ero, returned from th’ dead ta’ wreak me vengeance on unsuspectin’ enemies.”
“I thought you never died,” pointed out Jonathan.
“We’re talkin’ in th’ abstract,” she said huffily. “Narrative archetypes an’ linguistic tropes. I reckon I’s th’ big mystery ‘at’s s’posed ta’ keep folks listenin’ along ta’ whatever shabby twit is spinnin’ ‘is yarn out.”
“I think you’re the comic relief.”
“Thar’s the light,” said Devi. “I reckon that means we’re ‘eaded toward a cliff-‘anger.”
And indeed, the light had drawn closer. It flickered, in the way of firelight; and this, it turned out, was because it was the light of a fire. The blaze was set in a hole dug in the ground, partly sheltered from the rain by an overhang. The tops of the flames licked out, casting the light that he had spotted through the trees. A large tent was set back from the fire, with a log drawn near to serve for a seat. A small wild pig was roasting on a spit just over the hole, but no one seemed to be nearby either to sit on the log or turn the spit.
“This is the sort o’ scene,” remarked Devi, “‘at’s usually followed by a giant sword ‘er somethin’, comin’ out of th’ darkness all unseen to rest at yer throats, ‘eld by a great beastly creature ‘at got the drop on ye in th’ dark as ye wandered toward its fire.”
And so it was.